1. Field of the Present Invention
The present invention is in the field of printer systems and, more particularly printer systems that employ printer controllers.
2. History of Related Art
Production printer systems may include a controller that enables advanced printer control functionality. Exemplary of such printer systems are the Infoprint 2060ES and Infoprint 2090ES printers from IBM Corporation. In such systems, the controller provides functionality including printer-resident web pages that enable users to manage printer resources and submit print jobs, email printing and notification that allows users to send email, with attachments, to the printer, which can print directly from the email, scan functionality that enables users to scan documents directly to email or a fax, and other useful functions.
The controller in such printer systems is implemented with a printer circuit board or planar that has some of the characteristics of a desktop motherboard. Specifically, the printer controller includes a general purpose microprocessor such as a PowerPC microprocessor, a hard drive with significant disk space (e.g., 40 GB or more), system memory of 512 MB or more, and one or more network interconnect adapters.
It will be appreciated by those knowledgeable in the field of microprocessor-based systems generally that such a printer controller consumes significant power unless the controller is powered down or is in a low-power state. At the same time, many midrange production printer systems are designed for relatively moderate duty cycles and may be characterized by frequent periods of inactivity. It would be desirable to implement a printer system in which the power status of the printer system's “engine” is used to control the power state of the printer controller thereby powering down the printer controller when its function is not needed. Unfortunately, the printer engines in many printer systems are provided by third party vendors and the power state signals are not designed with printer controller communication in mind. It would be further desirable, therefore, if the implemented system were able to produce a printer controller power state signal in a format that is compatible with the power controller implementation.